The Aged Warrior - Old Version
by Zanzetkuken
Summary: If asked what the most powerful force in the Mojave Wasteland was, some would speak instead of war and how it changed the world into its current form. Others would speak of the legendary Courier Six, either in reverence or fear. If asked, the Courier would disregard both in favour of another answer. Time. The force that could heal all wounds and bring low any under its influence.
1. Prologue

**Here's something I wound up starting work on the Spacebattles forum under the username I have there. I had noted that a majority of stories in this pair of categories that utilize the Courier tend to have him be on the younger side of things, relatively. I decided to make one that instead went a different route, and make use of a Courier past the prime of things. Going to post all I have up on there, so this first set of updates will come out faster and may wind up being a bit longer than otherwise would happen.  
**

* * *

The Courier awoke slowly from a deep sleep. Years ago, he would have been working in one of the Big Mountain laboratories for several hours, working on a new design or experiment with the brains. Now, the ancient force of time had worn him down, as it did to all things in existence. In a few years, all that would be left of the individual who shaped the entirety of the Mojave would be a brain preserved with the others in the ageing complex. Whether it would be the mechanical version or the organic was of little concern to the Courier. He had stopped caring a long time ago.

The Courier rose from the bed, wounds gathered from his long travels sending spikes of pain throughout his form. The acquisition of most were forgotten to the depths of time, save for a few. The locations where his hands were staked through by the Legion during a botched raid into their lands that ended with him crucified until a few rangers rescued him. The damage dealt to his torso that was dealt to him when he faced Rawr in one of his explorations of the divide and after he was hit by a chaingun. The chunk taken out of his left forearm by a tunneller from that same trip. The twin gunshot wounds on his forehead that had been with him since the beginning of his journey. None had killed him, with potential exception to the final, but they were certainly making the end of his life hell.

Heading over to the Auto-Doc, the Courier had the machine analyse his body again. It had long become habit and he didn't care enough to break it. The analysis came back as it always did, with the determination that he would be extremely lucky if he lived for five years. Even that number was considered questionable with the extent of the chems he had taken, the remnants of the poisons he had been inflicted with, and the radiation he had waded through. While he could potentially get one more year if his organs were replaced en-mass, he did not think that one year was worth it. He had lived a nice long life, and his mind would continue on afterwards. Might as well die with relative grace.

The Courier walked over to where his gear was. He had been given the request of clearing out a lab by the brains and to utilize an early prototype of the Transportalponder within. From what he had been told, a probe that had been sent out by a specific one had returned through emergency functions with some strange damage. As he was the only one who was mobile and had a high level of skill, they wanted him to go through it to determine where it went. As he tended to do with requests, he agreed and was equipping himself for going in. He had spent the prior night restoring everything to their maximum condition, and as such, the weapons would not break for a long period of time.

He dressed himself in the Elite Riot Gear that had saved his life on several occasions. He holstered the Sequia earned from his twenty-seven years of NCR ranger service on his right side and the Maria he had taken from Benny's corpse on his left. While they weren't the most powerful pistols he owned, both were the most dependable weapons he had used over the course of his travels. His Blade of the West, given the name not from the Marked Men of the divide, but instead for being the blade he had duel Caesar Lanius when the new Caesar had returned, was sheathed on his back, crossed over with the YCS/186. He lined the inside of his coat with ammunition, several throwing knives, and pocketed the Figaro. On his right arm, he equipped the Ballistic Fist, modified to allow him to be able to hold and use a gun with it equipped, and added he Pipboy 3000, Dr. Klein's Glove underneath, to left arm. The Courier finished by throwing an old Duffel bag over his shoulder, in line with the Blade of the East, that contained a few weeks worth of food supplies, a couple unmarked bars of gold for sale wherever he ended up, and a copy of the Emergency Transportalponder that was equipped to the probe. It would prevent him from using the YCS/186, but he could work without it and he would likely need those supplies.

After updating his Pipboy to have a list of everything he was carrying, the Courier exited the Sink and headed off to the Lab. When he had arrived, he drew his Sequoia as he entered the building. Heading down through the facility, he encountered a couple of Bloatflies, which he killed with Maria, and a couple Cazadores, which went down fast from Sequoia shots. Eventually, he reached the area where the specific Prototype Transportalponder he was looking for was located. Rather than the handheld variant that was usually utilized, this early variant was a large circular platform to stand upon that had a mechanism similar to the later Transportalponder facing down towards the platform. The Courier headed to the panel near the device and went through the procedures utilized to send off the probe, copying what was done from the video footage he had seen the prior night. Walking onto the platform, he waited until the device went off. After a couple seconds, the device activated, taking the Courier to the landing point of the Probe.

* * *

The first impression of the location the Courier had arrived in was one of darkness. It appeared that the location the probe was transported to was a few timezones to the east from Big MT. Activating the lamp in his helmet, the Courier noticed that he was within a forest with some strangely red coloured trees. He attempted to check his location on the Pipboy, but that proved to be unsuccessful, as it could not establish contact with the RobCo satellites. Deactivating the light and letting his eyes adjust, the Courier wandered around for a short time, before coming across an extremely shallow cave. It was more of an overhang than anything, but it would do for his purposes. Setting his equipment down, the Courier looked up towards the sky to attempt to get an idea of which hemisphere he had ended up within. That thought was rendered moot when he took notice of the moon.

' _Three options. Someone was able to pull together a massive amount of resources to perform a strange task, the prototype sent me extremely far forwards in time, or the prototype could do more than could have ever been expected and has sent me to another world,_ ' the Courier thought as he looked upon the shattered moon.


	2. Chapter 1

**While all of this chapter was written up on SB already with the prior, the end of the former felt like the end of a Prologue. As such, I left it separate from this one.**

* * *

The Courier awoke several hours later. After a quick look-over of his weapons, he left the overhang and headed off in an arbitrary direction. East always seemed to lead to something holding danger to his person, so he headed off in that direction under the thought of just getting it over with. After a short time, he arrived at a large cliff, a railway at the bottom of it. Seeing no way around it, the Courier began to walk south along the edge. He then stopped when his instincts started screaming at him that something was wrong. He turned, slowly stepping away from the cliff, and drawing Maria. When a train whistle went off, his instincts screamed at him to get low. He dived onto on knee, head down as soon as it registered, narrowly avoiding a blade swung where he had been standing. The Courier dived left and brought his pistol to bear, VATS activating. The cocktail produced by the Pipboy entered his system and sped up his reaction time to where time appeared to stop to all but the most perceptive. The boost was only good for about a second, but with the speed the mind was processing, that second felt much, much longer than it ordinarily was.

With the boost from V.A.T.S., the Courier took stock of the situation. The individual that had ambushed him had some windswept hair that held a pattern of brown and a shade of red that was near that of the trees. There was a strangely adorned mask that the individual wore, markings that were mirrored on the left shoulder of the man's suit. ' _Probably has some form of significance to the culture these two come from. May mark a family linage or an clan-like organization he belongs to. I'll aim for the eyes, should shatter the mask and net the kill. Going to need to calibrate the Pipboy to see if doing so was a good karma or a bad karma action._ '

The Courier moved onto the second individual. He noted that the black haired female had a small level of shock held within her eyes, as if she had not been expecting her partner to attempt a strike to kill him. " _Must be a first mission for whatever organization the two belong to. Posture is indicative of having some combat experience, but not being used to attempting to kill would put her just out of training. Other might be her master, so likely has a large level of skill. Wonder if she doesn't have a mask in order for when she gets spotted, she'll be forced to remain with whatever group they are a part of.'_

He for the most part skipped past their attire, as unless the fabric was made of kevlar or an equivalent, which the Courier assumed it was due to it being idiotic to not wear some form of protection if you were going into combat, it wouldn't be all too helpful for the defensive. When he looked over their weapons, a question came to mind. ' _Why do they not have a ranged weapon? While their society may have been peaceful enough that guns may have been delayed, strange as that may be, why is there not at least a bow?_ _In fact, why do they not have a secondary weapon? They might have dropped the shield in favor of speed, but to not have at least a knife as a backup? Has no one ever been disarmed in the entire history of their civilization?'_ the Courier thought. _'Still, I can't draw the Blade of the West easily, so I'll shoot Mask's hand and take his.'_

Taking note that the effects of V.A.T.S. was starting to end, the Courier focused on his aim. He fired Maria three times, once towards the masked individual's hand and twice towards his eyes, before focusing on his roll to be able to move into a standing position when it finished. Contorting himself to minimize the amount of pressure exerted on the YCS/186, just in case it could get damaged, he barely managed to execute the roll. _'Thank God age didn't decay agility as fast as my strength. The Pipboy used to have ten there but now it's at a seven.'_

To the surprise of the Courier, the masked man didn't have a bleeding hand and his eyes shot out, potentially head exploded, but instead was fine, with exception of a fair amount of damage to the mask allowing for the Courier to see enraged eyes. The man looked like he wanted to kill the Courier, but another sound off of the train whistle seemed to change his focus. The man reluctantly turned away and went over the cliff with the other individual. ' _What the fuck?_ ' the Courier thought as he went over to the cliff and saw the two running down the cliff face, heading for a train that was about to pass by.

It should be noted the chemicals used by V.A.T.S. had a tendency to cause some minor errors in judgement on the part of the Courier in the short period of time where his mind was needing to readjust to the slowdown in processing speed. These errors tended to be a result of actions he would be considering being immediately translated to action. As such, this is how the Courier found himself heading over the cliff after his opponents. The realization of what he had done came one second after the point where he could have aborted his action. The realization that he may not have packed any Stimpaks to heal himself after he hits the bottom came nearly an instant later. ' _Graham survived worse with less,_ ' the Courier thought. ' _Still going to hurt._ '

The Courier attempted to use the duster of the Elite Riot Gear to reduce his speed at least a minor bit and to direct himself to be able to perform some kind of jump to hit the train the individuals he was pursuing just leapt onto. Making his own attempt, he narrowly landed upon the foremost of two flat cars. While he had seen the other two land upon two cars further up the train with a measure of grace, he wound up smacking into the area between the lines of crates on the foremost of a pair of flatbed rail cars, with his right shoulder dislocating itself from the quite poor landing he made. The Courier proceeded to ricochet into the crates on the far side of the rail car while having spun in such a way so as to hit it with his back. Thankfully, he did not hear the snap of his blade, any portion of the YCS/186 breaking, or the destruction of anything in the duffel bag. Moving between a couple of the crates, the Courier checked to make sure none of his weapons fell out, and with exception being to a few knives, none did. That is, unless he had stocked any explosives, as he had none of those. Thinking back, he believed he had wound up leaving all of them behind.

Popping his shoulder back into place, the Courier checked the Pipboy to see how much other damage he had wound up taking. With the general health as low as it was, the Courier went to the item listing to see how many Stimpaks he had registered as being brought along. ' _Four. Four stimpaks, two med-x, a psycho, and a stealth boy. Out of everything I owned, just those. I get the feeling I'm going senile,'_ the Courier thought. He soon heard the sounds of battle starting up nearby. ' _Wonder what's causing that?_ '

He did not have to wonder for long, as a battle wound up erupting onto the mostly empty flatbeds from one of the other rail cars. The Courier remained stock still while the battle between the individuals he had stupidly decided to chase down, noting with a minor amount of sadistic glee the one that tried to kill him had discarded the damaged mask somewhere, and several apparently robotic personnel of whoever owned the train. Observing the conflict being waged, a few thoughts came to the mind of the Courier. ' _Well that explains why they don't have armour. They emphasize style over efficiency. Armor is more in the latter category. Do wonder where the pistol came from, though._ ' The Courier then took note of the sheathe of the katana of the individual who tried to kill him just fired off a shot akin to a rifle. ' _Ah, multi-purpose weapons. More expensive than separate weapons in both initial cost and maintenance, with some difficulty in the latter. Granted, the society seems built more for style, so they might have gotten around that somehow. I'd laugh if what I think of a style is the universe's idea of efficient._ _If I bring through just a few people from back home, we could carve a haven fairly easily. Now there's a thought...'_

Continued thoughts were rendered null when he heard a blast from the direction the two had gone down. Taking a glance over the box that had been blocking his view, the Courier saw a four legged weapons platform exit from a hole blasted out of the next car. The two individuals were recovering, the black haired female more successful than the other, who had a minor bit of damage on him. ' _Guy can take quite a bit of damage. Thinking about it, Maria hardly did any damage to hi-...why is that mech aiming at me?_ '

The Courier sprinted out of his cover as the mech proceeded to fire upon his prior position, resulting in Black and Mask to take notice of his presence. A single thought ran through the Courier's mind, _'Great. A potentially three-way battle._ '

The Courier moved behind another set of crates and removed the Duffel bag. It would only get in the way, but he did stash a Stimpak and the Psycho in his duster. ' _Never know if you are going to need one,_ ' the Courier thought, drawing the Sequoia. He would attempt to kill the mech if it proved possible, but there was an alternate path he could use in a pinch. Getting out of cover before it decided to fire upon his position and potentially destroy his supplies, the Courier took stock of how the situation had changed. The mech had moved a short distance up the car it was on, but had apparently temporarily disengaged from pursuing him with Black having attempted to strike at it. Mask was seemingly preparing for something, standing there for whatever reason. It appeared that the two had decided to go after the mech before going after him. The Courier jumped to the car all the conflict was occurring on as the mech's guns began to transform, taking aim at him. Having crossed in order to be behind Mask, the Courier waited. ' _Probably going to dodge, but it might clip him._ '

Mask gave an order to Black for her to move as soon as the mech finished charging. She had moved a distance away before noticing the Courier had moved from the prior car. She paused for a moment, which was the moment the mech chose to fire. The Courier dodged out of the path he predicted the blast would go along, but he noted that Mask had not dodged. While this was strange, what occurred next bewildered the Courier. The blast fired off from the mech was absorbed by the man's blade, which redirected the force in a blow that obliterated the advancing mech. Black attempted to take an opportunity to get past the Courier, but that was deterred by him aiming the Sequoia in her direction. A near imperceptible shift occurred in her posture. Anyone who didn't have a skill of reading people as high as he did would have taken her expression as being fear of facing down the Courier. The Courier saw something similar to what he had once seen in a group of Legion slaves. It was not fear of him, not directly at least. It was a fear that with him being there she wouldn't be able to escape. ' _This had better not be a ruse,_ ' the Courier thought as he flicked his gun to the right as a gesture she could go past him, and then proceeded to aim and fire upon Mask.

Mask dodged below the attack as Black looked upon the Courier with a mild level of surprise. The Courier continued the turn he had started when he had moved his aim to Mask. He might be able to take on Mask, but based on that prior display, there was far too much he didn't know. As the past had shown repeatedly, lack of knowledge very nearly got him killed on several occasions. The Courier proceeded to sprint back and jump over the division between the rail cars, uncaring as to whether Black had snapped out of the daze he had caused in her. As he crossed the gap, he aimed down towards the coupling between the cars and unloaded a couple rounds into some stuff that looked important. His luck held, and one of the shots broke the link between the cars. Landing, he turned and saw Black make a jump to cross the widening gap a few seconds behind his jump. Looking over at Mask, he saw a combined look of rage and a measure of confusion. He made a move to go after the other car, but was stopped by the Courier fired off the last shot within his Sequoia at the individual, causing him to pause for just long enough the gap became uncrossable. As Mask slowly faded into the distance, the Courier turned to Black, who had appeared to have managed to complete the jump without too much difficulty. She was in a combat-ready stance, the confusion evident in her expression possibly being the only thing holding her back from attacking him. In an effort to diffuse the tension, the Courier holstered his Sequoia and said, "for every question you have that I answer, you must answer one of mine."

The wariness in her posture slightly lowered. Not enough to get her to lower her weapon, but it was a start. A short time passed before she chose a question. "Why?"

"You will have to be a bit more specific than that," the Courier replied, arms crossing behind his back.

An ever so slight flash of annoyance ran over her features as she responded with the clarification, "why did you help me?"

"I'm repaying an old debt to an old friend." It wasn't technically a lie, if you considered Doctor Mitchell saving his life and asking for nothing in return to be the debt. Before she could ask her next question, he cut her off. "Where have I ended up?"

Confusion was etched across her features again. "Forever Fall Forest." Well, it was at least something. "Who are you?"

' _I don't know enough to be able to properly disguise my identity. Might as well go for the truth._ ' "I am Mojave Delivery Service Courier Six, inactive New California Republic Veteran Ranger of twenty-seven years. I know you were expecting a name, but that knowledge has been taken from me." If by taken, you mean blasted out. "Who are you?"

"Blake." She replied after a short time of silence, making up for it by quickly following with the question, "Why did you not know where you were?"

' _In for a penny, in for a pound._ ' "I was transported here by a prototype of the Big Mountain Transportalponder and am currently uncertain as to whether I was sent to another part of the planet, another period in time, upon another world entirely, or some other combination." His answer took her offguard enough that he felt confident he could grab the duffel bag he set down earlier. As he did so, he asked, "As all possibilities leave me with a lack of knowledge of the situation I have found myself, would you kindly give me at least the basic information that would be held by a citizen of this land?"

An debate raged inside her for a time, the Courier waiting patiently throughout. When she responded with an affirmation, the Courier gestured for her to begin.

* * *

 **Please inform me if I wound up screwing anything up, as well as general opinions you have.**


	3. Chapter 2

The Courier wandered through the city, searching for somewhere to sell off a bar or two of gold to get the local currency, Lein if Blake hadn't misled him. They had parted ways soon after they had reached the city of Vale, the journey after her having explained the general information of where he found himself. She had remained suspicious of him the entire time they had been on the train, keeping her eye on him for a majority of the time. As such, he had abstained from searching the cargo to procure himself some of the dust that was being transported by the train. While it would have been useful to procure some for testing against his current munitions, there was always a slim chance that they would be caught before reaching the city, and he really didn't want her to have the advantage if they were put in a Prisoner's Dilemma situation. He wouldn't necessarily have betrayed her to the authorities, but there was wisdom in preventing the other individual from having something to testify about. The Courier mentally thanked Adam Taurus, the man behind the mask, for obliterating the mech so completely. So long as there was no outbound link, no footage of him had been captured. So far, he was clean of any criminal actions in this world. Still, that did not mean he was above suspicion, especially with his current clothing. While he could pass it off as being a hunter for a short time, the fact the kingdoms had a database and Taurus being out for his blood led to it being preferable to get a different set of clothing. For that, he would need money. ' _Glad I did not forget the gold,_ ' the Courier thought. ' _I likely could have stolen the money, but unfamiliarity with the security employed and being marked would have put me in a far worse situation._ '

Shaking his thoughts away, he continued into the more rundown section of the city. He felt a bit more at home in this area than in the other areas. Whether that was due to the presence of the criminal element or the appearance being more reminiscent of the cities back in the wasteland was up for debate. While the places of higher wealth were awe-inspiring to the Courier, they were far too polished, to the point it felt as if reality was a false construct. There was still a share of unreality to the area, but it was only a slight feeling that was easily ignored and could likely be gone after a short period of time. As he continued to search around, the Courier did note that the Faunus population was a bit higher out in this area than what had appeared to be the norm in his one near trip through the higher class areas before the strange, to him, nature of the city got to his nerves. Admittedly, the entirety of the population was giving him a wide berth, but considering his appearance and the area he was in, that was understandable. A couple of people seemed to want to attempt a pickpocket were all shot down with a minor look in their direction. Whatever the Pipboy had cooked up to make him able to induce terror in select targets worked quite well against individuals his experience easily identified as wishing to attempt to steal from him. ' _Never attempt to steal from a master,_ ' he thought as he came across what he was looking for, a pawn shop.

Entering the relatively rundown structure, the Courier walked into the store. He noted that he was the only one in the building at the current time, with exception being held for the clerk at the front. As the man looked up, the Courier set down one of the three gold bars he had brought with him and simply asked, "How much will you buy this for?" It wasn't one of the Sierra Madre bars, the five he had brought back were all stored in the Sink. These were instead few he had gotten as a reward from the Brains back at Big MT as a gift from his service over the years. He wasn't fully certain where they had gotten them, but a quick, highly intensive check over the course of a few days showed that none of the bars from Sierra Madre were missing. They always seemed to carry a curse with them. That might be attributed to raiders, but certain events when they were in his possession led him to be a bit concerned.

The clerk did a quick check of the mass of the bar and listed off a number. A short debate occurred with the Courier ending up getting a fair amount more money than the initial offering. He spent a portion of the money gained in order to purchase a set of clothing similar to the duster he was gifted by Ulysses, which he put on in the shop's restroom. There were some minor differences in that attire and his current one. Foremost was the utilization of a trenchcoat rather than a sleeveless duster that had a darker shade to it, as well as lacking an emblem upon its back. The shirt was a dark tan and had no real adornments to it, with exception of the Courier putting the vest of the Elite Riot Gear underneath it. The pants and boots were near identical, without the second belt and kneepads in the case of the former. The Courier offloaded his prior clothing and most of his weapons into the duffel bag, unloading if it was neccessary. He kept Maria, the Blade of the West, Figaro, and about half his throwing knives with him. It was a bit difficult, but he was, barely, able to pack things in without damage to anything inside. He also stored the Scroll he had bought inside, to have at least some of its internals incorporated into his Pipboy.

With everything finished, he took a side glance into the mirror. Despite the dirt clinging to it, it was clearer than a majority of the mirrors he had encountered in the Mojave. The scars from the gunshots taken so long ago that had stolen his memory were partially faded in contrast to the set of three parallel claw marks that went over his left eye. Damage to the eye itself had been repaired by the Auto-Doc, bringing him back up to perfect vision. None of the myriad of scars garnered over the years had been removed, with exception to the damage he had suffered from a bullet that had hit his jaw in his fourth year as a Ranger. His hair was a mixture of grey and black as a result of his hair seeming to be as stubborn as himself in regards to holding onto life. The relative cleanliness allowed for the Courier to note something small in his eye that he had not priorly been able to notice. From what he could tell, his blue eyes were lined with a alternating pattern of bright amber and a bright green. ' _Wonder what caused that._ _The chems, the radiation, or both?_ ' the Courier thought as he noticed it.

Putting the fact out of his mind, the Courier gathered up his things and exited the building. A few hours later he found himself in a small apartment within the same area of town that proved to rank in one of the better levels of accommodation he had stayed in, despite what the locals would probably think. He had gone to another pawn shop and sold off the second bar of gold to pick up some tools and spare parts to be able to work with to improve his Pipboy and guns. Overall, he was left with a good sum of money that would probably be able to last him for a good amount of time. He would need to get a job doing something relatively soon, but that concern could wait. He had a few improvements and repairs to do.

* * *

 **Here's another chapter for you. I chose not to assign a particular value to the Lien, as I am not entirely certain what a reasonable rate to utilize would be. As such, I decided to keep it vague.**


	4. Chapter 3

The Courier leaned back in frustration. The Scroll and his Pipboy ran off of two systems that had such heavy differences that it was proving to be near impossible to be able to combine the two. As such, the Courier believed he would need to reverse engineer the technology used by the Pipboy and integrate it into the Scroll.

A majority of the Pipboy's system was converted with a fair degree of ease, with the additional power opened up by the scroll allowing for a much less bulky gauntlet. A comparison between the Remnant materials and those of his Pipboy revealed that the latter was composed of materials that had a higher degree of durability. As a result, the Courier had it form the outer shell of the device, the thickness around the arm being halved due to not having to have electronics wired around the entirety of the arm and the shell being repainted to a near-black blue in order to aid a small bit in stealth. Due to utilizing a touch interface rather than requiring numerous knobs and buttons, the surface on the outer forearm was able to be completely flat, with a slight recess where the display of the scroll was housed. The display in question was modified, through trial and error to utilize the see-through paneling of the Pipboy. While the end further up the forearm was thicker than the other, as it housed the nigh-eternal power source of the Pipboy and the mechanisms to utilize VATS. On the opposing end were two buttons, one to activate the device, the other to switch between the functions added by the scroll and a slightly modified Pipboy interface. Main modifications were to have the browsing converted over to work better with a touch screen interface, addition of the aura measuring of the scroll to the health screen, potential viewing of allies' health included at a cost of replacing the Vault Boy graphic with text, and to use more than one colour. It took roughly five days to get everything properly wired up, and two weeks to get everything programmed fully. He likely could have done it in a week if he pushed himself, but rushing leads to errors, and errors in any part, especially VATS, would lead to an unexpected death. In addition, it took a bit of time to work a few custom encryptions while not interfering with the existing communication software.

During the time he had spent building up the hybrid system, the Courier had done a bit of research upon Aura and Dust. It wasn't overall too extensive, as much of his focus was upon learning the software and hardware utilized by technology of Remnant, but he managed to compose a decent level of basic knowledge. While a majority of the studies performed upon dust seemed to rely upon the assumption there was a soul, the Courier wasn't fully certain of this. Based upon personal experience and some reading into dust, the Courier was going to be working upon the assumption that Aura was the product of a mutualistic relationship between active Dust within the bloodstream of an individual and the individual. Semblances would be manipulation of this relationship upon the Dust within the bloodstream, as well as, in some cases, outside the body, utilizing similar methods to human psychics from back home. Dust would enter the bloodstream through its presence within the other living organisms in the world, biomagnification increasing the amount of Dust gotten. The fact that meditation could unlock a person's aura could be explained away as most Dust gained was inert, and meditation caused the active Dust that had been gained from both parents to begin to activate the rest. While there could be information he was unaware of and the Grimm were a strange outlier, it was a working hypothesis for the current point in time. This did leave the Courier at a bit of a disadvantage, but if Dust enhanced his higher brain functions to the point he could slowly activate the passive with any small scraps of active dust within his meals, he might be able to remove that disadvantage. His would not be able to match up to someone who had lived on the planet their whole life, unless he did something drastic, but it would at least be something.

On the subject of Dust, the Courier found something interesting. Whereas back home different industries would have to run off of vastly different materials, Remnant's civilizations were able to run all their industries off of the same substance. There were some minor differences in the varying types of Dust, but for the most part all the industries could be satisfied by this one material. However, if the statistics he found were correct, even the highest qualities of Dust were less efficient at doing the tasks than the resources back home. The two main examples that came to mind, gunpowder and nuclear power, both proved to be more efficient than the Dust utilized by the technology in this place. However, the Dust that was used to perform those tasks could easily be used for other tasks, effectively causing the substance to follow the phrase 'jack of all trades, master of none'. Admittedly, with a world on the brink, that was the best substance that could be utilized, but this did make the question of running out a disturbing question. Especially when no one really seemed to know exactly what resulted in the creation of Dust. While it wasn't sure where several resources came from when it first started being used, it was figured out before technology reached the point in time the civilizations of Remnant managed to get to. If the Grimm were ever beaten back, the possibility of a future resource war from the increase in population was a very real threat. At least there was nothing on the scale of a nuclear weapon at the current time.

Shaking his mind to clear his thoughts, the Courier decided to head out to get a drink from a nearby bar as an act of celebration at the finishing of his improved Pipboy. Besides, he needed a job, and he frequently found paths that netted him a fair amount of money. At very least it wound up allowing him to get his name out there so jobs that paid good money came along.

* * *

 **A bit shorter of a chapter this time around, but the descriptions were a bit long and this is more of a transition than anything. Anyway, opinions upon how I explained Aura, Semblances, and Dust from the perspective of an individual from Fallout, as well as the design the Pipboy was modified into?  
**


	5. Reason for Inactivity-Notice of Rewrite

**I apologize for going silent for so long, but due to outside circumstances, I have been unable to work on this story. I did make an update in the Spacebattles thread, but it was really weak. When I looked back upon the rest of the chapters as of recent, I saw the rushed state they were in due to wishing to attempt an extremely fast paced update schedule. As such, I'm going to rewrite them in order to get them looking a bit better going forwards. Again, I apologize for the wait you have been through so far and the further wait the rewrite will cause, but the former was out of my hands and the latter I believe I really need to do before I go further on with this story.**


	6. Link to the Rewritten First Chapter

**The new first chapter proved to have a great enough degree of difference that I put it within its own story rather than attempt to edit it into this one. I recall that links to other portions of fanfiction do work, so here's a link to it: s/11736722/1/The-Aged-Warrior**


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